Survive the Night: A Novel

I have read many books by Riley Sager and was so excited to receive a copy of his latest thriller, Survive the Night. The book is about a college student named Charlie whose roommate Maddie is murdered. Charlie remembers telling Maddie to “eff off” when she is tired and wants to go home from the bar they are at and Maddie doesn’t. She sees Maddie with a man in a fedora hat as she leaves. Charlie, however, is an extremely unreliable witness because she often makes up “movies” in her head, thereby mixing reality with her own fantasy. She cannot clearly describe the man. Charlie posts on her school rideshare board to get a ride home (a good distance away) and gets a ride with a guy named Josh, whom she is suspicious of immediately.

This book spends most of the time with Charlie having a mental breakdown in the car with Josh. Then things fall apart once they stop at a diner to eat. Charlie just keeps getting more and more freaked out and the reader has no idea when she is hallucinating or when things are real. Annoying characters with a plot that went nowhere until the last quarter of the book. Skip this one.